This is what Michael Shaffersees from his perch as president of Management Recruiters San Francisco Bay:

"In the Bay Area, we've been noticing a major uptick in hiring in the commercial construction industry, with projects in the $75 million and up range."

But elsewhere he's seeing something different.

"We're seeing positions being created, but taking a long time to fill. There's just a lot of looking," said Shaffer, whose Dublin firm, part of MRINetwork, a global recruitment company, scouts for management-level talent in a range of enterprises, including biotech, medical devices, software, business services and sales.

"What we're not seeing is replacement positions being filled if they're not considered vital." Except, he said, when workload productivity becomes so heavy "that employers are afraid of losing key people."

At the same time, this is what nonmanagement employees are seeing: the last remaining toll-takers on the Golden Gate Bridge out of a job at the end of the month, displaced by an automated system that is supposed to save the cash-strapped bridge district $19 million.

Layoffs still happening

Fifty-seven back office employees are being laid off at a Bank of America facility in Rancho Cordova (Sacramento County) thanks to "strong progress with our mortgage customers in need of assistance and the decreased number of delinquent loans we now service," said a BofA spokeswoman on Thursday.

In other words, dig a little deeper into the positive numbers and you find an awful lot of people left behind. Like African Americans, whose official unemployment rate, at 13.8 percent, is unchanged. Unofficially, it's probably closer to double that number, because, as is true for all demographic groups, the headline number doesn't account for the "hidden" unemployed - those who, for one reason or another, have dropped out of the labor force.

Many aren't in market

Those numbers continue to increase. Labor force participation dropped to its lowest rate since the early 1980s, while the number of people "marginally attached" to the labor force is at a historic high of 2.5 million, according to economists at Wells Fargo Securities.

"The numbers represent an acceleration in the long-term trend of declining male participation, but also a reversal in the (upward) participation rate trend of women," the economists said in a paper published last week.

Contributors to the long-term trend are not hard to find: increased productivity, automation, globalization and lately, apps. According to the Wall Street Journal, a $40,000 "Save Our Citrus" crop disease-detecting app developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture looks to eliminate the need for several hundred agricultural inspectors nationwide, including a couple hundred in California.

"Many of these things, like automation and higher productivity, can be engines for growth and the foundation for a better society. We've had them in periods of both high employment and high economic growth," said UC Berkeley labor economist Harley Shaiken. What makes the situation more disturbing this time, he said, is the failure of public policy to address the challenges.

"A retail app can create very serious dislocation in retail industry. But what makes it worse is the failure to provide opportunities for those dislocated to get into these emerging technology sectors. That sometimes needs government intervention," he said.

The good news from Friday's job numbers is that job growth was spread across all sectors, including manufacturing, though excluding, of course, government. Also, private sector pay rose a little, as hourly wage rates increased (and people worked longer hours).

Imbalance grows

But in a week when the stock market, backed by record corporate profits, rose to record highs, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reminded us of this: Corporate profits accounted for 14.2 percent of national income in the third quarter of 2012, the largest share since 1950, while the percentage going to employees stood at 61.7 percent, the lowest since the 196os.

"We've always had inequality, but what we're now seeing is hyper-inequality, while huge swaths of people are being abandoned to unemployment," said Shaiken. "This is damaging to the economy and corrosive to a democratic society."